McNatt: How to get your own cash crops

For those of us who have jumped on the backyard food wagon, we already know that our primary incentive is flavor.

There is nothing to compare homegrown edibles to grocery store fare. We can wait until a tomato, peach, cantaloupe or cucumber is at the height of ripeness and perfection before we pick it and bring it inside to devour.

But what if you are wondering what is worth growing? You have a fixed space to grow vegetables and fruit, and you want to choose something that will get you your money's worth.

You might have heard of the book, "The $64 Tomato" by Bill Alexander (Algonquin Books), about one man's quest to start a vegetable garden. After amortizing the expense of set-up, landscape contractors, deer fencing, pest management, irrigation and more gadgets than most of us own, his cost benefit analysis arrived at $64 per tomato.

Far-fetched if you ask me, since most of us simply stick a few tomato starts in whatever available sunny spot we've got outside.

Kitchen Gardeners International takes a different look at the value of a single square foot of food and put market values on them:

Cilantro$21.20

Green salad mix$17.55

Chives$16.40

Lettuce$16.20

Tomato$15.57

Winter squash$8.40

Snow peas$4.50

Peppers$4.50

Carrots$3.56

Radish$2.60

Beans$2.51

Spinach$1.80

Potatoes$1.50

Parsley$1.31

Eggplant$1.10

Broccoli$0.60

You can look at figures like these and wonder what's worth growing for you. Radishes, for example, are not a high-dollar crop and could even taste better from the market compared to the croquet balls we grow in the garden. Radishes might fall in the not-worth-growing group, although they are great fun for children because they are fast.

Green salad mixes, however, look worthwhile to grow as a high-cash crop. And there is nothing like the just-picked freshness of salad greens.

While potatoes are not a high-profit vegetable per square foot, anybody who has grown their own knows how delicious they are dug up tender and early. So potatoes might be worth growing even though their dollar value is low.

The list doesn't take into account fruit trees. Even though fruit tree crops ripen all at once, we all know fruit trees gives us pounds of food in a small space.

Lastly, if you're thinking about what is worth growing in your own yard, consider the organic factor. Some foods are saturated with pesticides. Eatingwell .com names the Dirty Dozen Plus – 14 foods you should buy organic.

Maybe a single tomato cost Bill Alexander $64, but his story is more about humorous adventures than it is about gardening. You and I know that a $3 pack of seeds, each pack containing about 30 seeds, hence 30 plants if we're lucky, will yield pounds and pounds of organic produce picked at the height of flavor. ï¿½